


The Great Reveal

by TheChroniclesofMagic



Category: The Chronicles
Genre: Angels, Journalist, Urban Fantasy, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-02
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2019-01-28 08:06:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12602080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheChroniclesofMagic/pseuds/TheChroniclesofMagic
Summary: Want to know more about the world where these stories come from? Visit us at our websiteThe Chronicles of Magic





	1. Preface

**Author's Note:**

> Want to know more about the world where these stories come from? Visit us at our website The Chronicles of Magic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Want to know more about the world where these stories come from? Visit us at our website [The Chronicles of Magic](https://www.thechroniclesofmagic.com/)

I wasn’t doing anything important the day the world changed. I was proofreading my article about President Obama being re-elected when my boss, Raheem Howard, yelled for everyone to pull up CNN Live. As I pulled up the site I saw a dark-skinned Black woman bite into the neck of a placid white man. She drew back and bared her fangs, blood dripping from her lips.

She pulled out a napkin and wiped the blood from her mouth before speaking. “Hello. My name is Abeni and today our world changes forever. Today the "monsters" you thought belonged in fairy tales and horror movies step out of the shadows and reveal ourselves to you. We have been living among you side by side since the beginning and now we wish to live out in the open. All over the world vampires and all the other magical beings, you told yourself and your children couldn’t be real will be proving just that. Now I cannot speak for how the witches and wizards and shapeshifters and so on will behave now that we are out in the open but I can speak for the vampires. We are not your enemies and we are not here to hurt you. Appropriate measures have been taken so that we can live side by side with as little loss of life as possible…”  
             
The next few days whenever someone turned on the television or went onto any site that reported the news the only thing they’d see is more of the creatures we all thought weren’t real revealing themselves. I saw a man turn into a T-Rex at the Smithsonian Museum. Four days after everything changed I sat down with my boss and told him that I wanted to know more. That I wanted to use my vacation days to start interviewing people and monsters alike.  
\- Riya Bentov


	2. Interview with a Vampire: New York City, New York. Four Seasons Ty Warner Penthouse

**[The Four Season’s description of the view of Manhattan from the Penthouse doesn’t do it justice. It just says “guests can enjoy 360-degree views of Manhattan through floor-to-ceiling windows.” Which is true, but to not mention how breathtaking it is the first time you see it is just improper advertising. Abeni is lounging on one of the three couches in the living room. Her dark black skin greatly contrasts against the creamy white color of the couch and the rest of the room]**

_Who are you?_

**[she laughs, it’s a light, rhythmic laugh]** To have gotten this interview you had to know exactly who I am. 

Uh yes, of course, I do it's just I am recording this as proof that this interview actually occurred. 

**[She throws an upward glance at the camera behind me before answering]** Very well. My name is Abeni. I am a member of the Vampire Council and the first of my kind.

_As the first of your kind does that mean all vampires are descended from you?_

No. While I was the first of my kind I didn’t create or have a hand in creating every vampire in existence. There are other ways to become a vampire. Magic from different cultures that do what was done to me. 

_Where are you from and how did you become what you are?_

I’m from what is now called Ethiopia. When I was alive a great sickness swept over my people, I would later learn it was a magical disease brought upon us by a nation to the west we were constantly at war with. My younger sister, Semira, and I were one of the people stricken by the disease but my mother was not. She pled with our gods to cure the diseased and if not all of them at least her daughters. After my sister succumbed she turned to the demons and devils of our faith. She called upon ancient and dark magic and from that I was created.

 _Had your mother ever done something like this before? Obviously not to this magnitude but called upon dark magic to change something?_

No. My mother was always telling my siblings and I that we must be strong and loyal in our faith and never let the dark and twisted ones corrupt us.

_Then why did she do what she did?_

**[Abeni sighs.]** My mother lost my father and my three brothers to the war and my younger sister to the sickness. I was all she had left and she couldn’t let me go. 

_Okay, tell me more about the Vampire Council._

The council is made up of representatives from each continent, well besides the North and South poles. There are colonies of scientists turned vampires there who study the wildlife and such but there’s not enough of them to truly warrant a representative. 

_Who are all the representatives?_

The North American one is a Native American woman by the name of Aiyana Locklear. The South American representative is a Columbian named Héctor Moya. In case you end up speaking to Héctor they go by they/them/theirs. The African representative is a Nigerian man named Nassor Harb. The Asian representative is an Indian woman named Leya Penkar. The Australian representative is an Aboriginal man named Dural and **[she sighs heavily and rolls her eyes]** the European representative is a German man named Zacharias Riemann. As the creator of the council, I have a constant seat despite the fact that I represent no continent.

_I sense some very overt tension about the European representative. Could you tell me why?_

In life, he ignited the passion of the humans in the Nazi party and in death he does so for the vampires that are of like mind. It is believed that he killed his opposition for the council position but it couldn't be proven. If it wouldn’t cause an international issue with the European vampires, I would rip his head from his body and stake them both outside the European Vampire Headquarters in Berlin.

_What kind of international issue would it cause?_

Whispers have gotten back to the rest of us on the council that if anything were to happen to Zacharias by our hands because of his beliefs they would go on a killing spree throughout Europe. We obviously can’t have that, the loss of life on such a scale would be a huge set back in everything we’ve accomplished since the Reveal. 

_So what does your council do exactly?_

Well even though we are a loose somewhat nomadic society we are still a society nonetheless and every society needs laws and those that enforce them. We were instrumental in getting the vampire population to agree to the Vampire Registration Act the U.N. created. 

_How so?_

We made it very clear that the protections the Vampire Council provides the vampire community at large would not be as forthcoming if someone was to go unregistered **[a somewhat unnerving smile spreads across her face as she says that.]**

_I see. Has being registered changed your way of life?_

Not particularly. Anything that I could have gotten in trouble for was cleared up with the amnesty clause of the Act. Another one of our brilliant ideas. 

_Could you talk more about the amnesty clause?_

Of course, we knew that vampires who had killed people before learning how to properly feed would be hesitant to register because their fangs would be molded and compared to any crimes scenes involving strange bite marks. As such, we argued that as long as there wasn’t a pattern of sadistic deliberate killings linked to a vampire they shouldn’t be punished for surviving before the Reveal and the registration. The U.N. agreed after we made it very clear this would make or break the VRA. But as I said it hasn’t changed my life because I was never a sadistic vampire. I didn’t kill for the joy. I killed to feed and eventually I figured out how to feed and not kill. That would be the only point of contention had I been one of those type of vampires. Those of us that are well they had this coming and have been properly destroyed. 

_How old are you?_

Nearly two hundred thousand years old. I am not actually precisely sure but I know roughly we were the first of this world and according to modern dating that makes me around that age.

_So you've seen everything._

I’ve seen a lot of things more than anyone else has and more than anyone else ever will if I never die, but I haven’t seen everything. The days are endless and in my quest to occupy myself I have at times in history been so focused on one thing and completely missed another. During the American Civil War, I was in Japan. I was I would say obsessed with ukiyo-e, Japanese woodblock prints, and didn’t realize the civil war happened until it was over. Obsessions such as those have stopped me from witnessing and even possibly aiding in a lot of world-changing events.

_Are there events that you managed to aide in?_

A few. 

_Could you elaborate on one of them?_

As I’ve said I’m close to two hundred thousand years old so for a while I wandered the continent of Africa and then I eventually made my way into Asia as humanity migrated but I would always return home from time to time, checking in on my people and the branches of my human family, my mother had three brothers and two sisters. In 1794 I was making another one of those trips and checking on one of my cousins, Fatim, when I witnessed her and others from her village being captured by white men. It was growing close to dawn. I knew I wouldn’t be able to rescue her and the others with dawn drawing so near so I found a place to hide from the sun’s rays and slept. That night I tracked the ship down just in time to see it crash. I held aloft a large piece of wood that had broken away from the ship and managed to save twenty-three of the people that were captured.

_Was your cousin one of them?_

No. I searched and could not find her. The sea had claimed her.

_Do you know the name of the ship?_

The São José

_Back to my original question. You’ve seen a lot of things and I’m sure there have been others before me who knew what you were and have asked this question but in all the years you’ve been uhm…alive. **[She lets out a harsh chuckle as I stumble over that word]**. In all the years you’ve been alive what do you regret the most?_

**[Her lips purse before she grows silent and still as the grave. I know I know corny, but it was going to happen. There’s about five minutes of unnerving stillness before she speaks again.]** The man I was to spend the rest of my life with, Ohin, he was one of the few who weren’t stricken by the sickness and after many nights I returned to my home wanting to turn him into what I was. 

_How did you know what to do to turn him?_

I didn’t. I hoped some sort of instinct would take over and I would be able to turn him. I was wrong. Or I was right. After I turned someone fifty years later I remembered this sensation in my head driving me to feed my victim my blood to turn her. I had felt it with Ohin but my hunger was too much and I ignored it. I brought him to my mother and pleaded with her to save him. She wasn’t able to and in my rage I attacked her. I snapped her neck and drained her of all her blood. I must have made too much noise because four of the men who survived the sickness came storming into our home weapons raised. I killed them all. One of them had just turned sixteen and became a man less than a month ago. His name was Lekan. He was in love with my younger sister. I’m sure had the disease never happened he would have asked for her hand. I ran after that and never returned. I spent the next fifty years running from place to place. Feeding at night. Hiding during the day before I met Thema. I had been so lonely for so long that one night after I had fed when I came upon a young woman alone, gazing up at the stars instead of running I appeared next her covered in blood and yet I still managed to convince her I wouldn’t hurt her and I didn’t until she asked me too. She was the first vampire I ever created. 

**[At the sound of her name a short, thick woman a few shades lighter than Abeni enters the room. She runs her hand affectionately over the top of Abeni’s head before sitting down next to her. Abeni shifts so that she is now shoulder to shoulder with Thema and her hand is lounging gingerly on her knee.]** **_Abeni found me one night after she had her fill of neighboring villagers. I was gazing up at the stars as I was known to do and she suddenly appeared at my side. Her mouth was still covered in blood and when she smiled it was the most unnerving thing I had ever seen and yet she managed to convince me she wasn’t going to harm me. And she didn’t until I asked her too._ **

**[Thema’s running her fingers along the back of Abeni’s neck as she speaks]** I made sure she knew what she was asking. I even told her about Ohin and the others and she still wanted me to turn her. I was terribly lonely and after that night I never was again. Of course, there have been times when we have parted ways but we always found our way back to each other.

**_Yes, always._ **


	3. Interview with an Angel: Gantts Quarry, Alabama. Alabama Department of Mystical Anomalies Facility [ADMAF]

**[The ADMAF looks eerily like Old Bryce Lawn, the abandoned mental health facility at the University of Alabama. I was never a resident there but the week before I graduated I snuck in with some friends so I know what I’m talking about. If I didn’t already know that these halls had ghost in them I’d be betting my entire life savings this place was haunted just like Bryce.**

**When I entered the hospital, I saw a sign that read: No Religious Iconography of Any Sort. Upon checking in I had to hand over the Star of David necklace I always wore. I felt naked. After that, I was lead down the hall to the elevator. I passed a few ghosts floating around in the hallway and even got a glimpse of something being strapped down to a table as its body flickered with an almost painfully bright light. We traveled to the fourth floor of this fifteen-floor building and passed more doors, closed this time, before reaching our destination. The orderly that was leading me, A frail white man named Josiah, stopped at a door that was heavily secured. Five locks, three deadbolts and a metal bar across the door.**

**When I had reached out about this interview I was told I would have to sign a liability waiver in the event of injury or death. I thought it was simple procedure because of the nature of the facility but I was not so sure now. Josiah unlocked the door and ushered me in. Inside there was a small cot in the corner. A desk next to a bookshelf filled with various religious text and a small round table was placed next to a window. At the table was a white man with grey hair where it wasn’t balding. He was staring out the window and made no indication that he knew we were there. I set up the camera while he stared out the window in silence. Once I sat down at the table he turned towards me and I nearly jumped out of my seat. His eyes were completely white.]**

**[A thin smile spreads across the man’s lips]** I am sorry to have frightened you. I would have thought Josiah would have warned you of this. **[His voice grew a bit hard as he says that and Josiah who has been standing at the door watching mumbles something before closing the door with a loud thud. I hear the locks, deadbolts and metal bar being reapplied.]**

_It’s fine. I should have asked more questions. Speaking of questions do you know why I am here?_

You have come to ask me questions about who and what I am.

_That’s right. So, the first question is who are you?_

My name is Gadiel. I was an Angel of the seventh battalion of Heaven under Sariel. The husk that I am wearing is Nathaniel J. Hoffsmeyer. A strange name. Humans have a lot of strange names.

_We do. Jumping right into this, what is Heaven like?_

There are billions of words in all your languages and none of them can describe the magnificence of Heaven so I will not try. 

_Really. There’s no word in any language alive or dead that you could use to describe what Heaven is like? Maybe just give it a try? Who cares if it’s short of perfe- **[As I say this his eyes bore into mine and his face hardens as if holding back barely suppressed power and rage. I raise my hands in a surrendering motion]** You know what you’re right. No good words. Let’s not diminish the magnificence of Heaven by using subpar words to describe it. Moving on. Can you tell me what your role was in Heaven? _

For as far back as my memory stretches I was a warrior. I fought in the war against The Fallen.

_The Fallen. The angels that rebelled against God?_

Yes.

_What was the war like?_

Are you sure you wish to know? **[His voice is a phantom of what it was before, haunted and scarred.]**

_Of course_

**[He lifts his pointer and middle finger to his lips, pressing a soft kiss on them before reaching over and touching me on the forehead. I’m thrust from the room and onto a battlefield. There are shouts and cries of pain. The ground beneath me looks like it’s made of clouds. All around me there are broken bodies with wings coming out of them. Golden liquid flows from their wounds.**

**There’s an angel laying on the ground while another angel stands over them a sword pointed at the angel’s neck.**

**“Mercy Gadiel!”**

**“There is no mercy for traitors.”**

**Gadiel jabs his arm forward. The sword pierces the other angel’s throat. More golden liquid flows from the wound like a river.]**

**[I’m back in the room.]** _What just happened?_

I shared with you a memory of the war against the Fallen. 

_Who was the angel you killed in that memory?_

Sareash. She was in the Seventh Battalion of Heaven with me before she sided with Lucifer.

_She begged you for mercy and instead, you stabbed her in the throat._

Is there a question in that statement?

_Why? If she was begging for it why could you not give it?_

As I said then I will say now. There is no mercy for traitors.

_But isn’t God all about mercy and forgiveness?_

Sometimes, but not always. She sided against Father and needed to suffer.

_Where is she now? Where do angels go when they are killed?_

We do not have souls like humans so Heaven is closed to us and unless Father cast us down into Hell we would not end up there either. I believe we simply cease to exist. Like the light of a candle being snuffed out.

_So, angels that rebel against God are either snuffed from existence or cast into Hell and yet here you are. Why are you down here instead of Hell? What exactly did you do that God deemed it necessary to trap you in the body of Nathaniel J. Hoffsmeyer?_

**[Gadiel turns his head away from me and stares out the window for a few minutes before speaking.]** And by no right shall a warrior of God fall for a child of Adam for this represents a crime. This is a tenant of our Father, one of the many given to the angels. I broke this one, along with another. 

_What was the other tenant?_

Cause no harm to the children of Adam unless our Father commanded us to do so. I harmed a child of Adam. I killed a child of Adam. 

_Who did you kill?_

Nathaniel J Hoffsmeyer. 

_How is that possible? You said the body you are in is Nathaniel J Hoffsmeyer._

When angels inhabit bodies, we share space with the soul and consciousness of the individual who the body belongs to. The consciousness registers everything that is happening while we are in control but doesn’t realize it isn’t in control so when we leave there’s no missing time, no clues that we were ever there. Now if a human’s soul and consciousness has moved on, for instance, people who are brain dead, it is possible for an angel to inhabit the body when the person’s conscious, the person’s soul is dead and gone and that’s how I am here and how Nathaniel J. Hoffsmeyer’s body is still here. I am keeping it alive. 

_Why did you kill him?_

After the war against the Fallen there was peace once again in Heaven and the duties of angels fell from being warriors tasked with defeating our once comrades to simply monitoring the humans and sending them signs and blessings as Father commanded. There was one human Gabrielle Fischer. In my free time, I was constantly watching her. I saw her first steps. I saw the first boy she ever kissed. I saw the first girl she ever kissed as well. I saw so much of her life and in watching her grow and suffer and persevere through everything Father had destined for her I…I fell in love with her. After she turned eighteen when Father would send me down to Earth to inhabit a body I would sneak away before I returned to Heaven and inhabit whomever she was dating at the time. When we are in these bodies we can feel everything that happens to them. Eventually, after some time she married Nathaniel J. Hoffsmeyer. I would still visit from time to time, taking over this body. 

When they conceived their first child I was the one that was in control of this body, but eventually, it wasn’t enough. I grew resentful that all I could have were just passing moments, that I couldn’t stay longer. The next time I took over this body, in a moment of weakness I…I shattered his mind. Destroyed his consciousness. He was nothing but a husk. Moments after it happened I was pulled back to Heaven and I was in front of Father. His rage was terrible to behold. He cursed me to stay in this body and to love and lose that which I held most dear: Gabrielle. Two months later she died in my arms. Shot by someone robbing a store we were in and I could do nothing to save her. 

_You killed a man and caused the death of a woman because you were jealous? Aren’t angels supposed to virtuous and above such human things?_

We are supposed to be but if that were true Lucifer Morningstar would have never rebelled and so many angels wouldn’t have died or fallen with him. We are far from the beings of perfection that you humans paint us as. **[After he finished speaking his head began to move side to side at a rapid pace and blurred for a moment]**

This body is old and frail. It cannot contain my power. Soon it will expire. 

_And then what?_

Then I suppose I will live out my existence as a corpse. This is my punishment. To exist inside the body of the man I killed until the end of time. Or perhaps not. Perhaps Father will allow me to return home, have mercy on me. 

_The same mercy you showed Sareash?_

**[silence.]**


End file.
